


testify

by diwata



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, More Team 7 than romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:29:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24966007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diwata/pseuds/diwata
Summary: Sakura is the snarky witness, Naruto is the valiant government attorney. Sasuke is just tired. ft. Judge!Kakashi“Haruno-sensei, is it true you graduated medical school?”“Yes. Is it true that you passed the bar examination?”
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke
Comments: 26
Kudos: 174





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Super indulgent courtroom Team 7 AU, I don't care. I just wanted to flex my knowledge of Evidence objections.

“What I’m saying is that attorneys should have entrance songs like wrestlers do. The clerk can play them during walk-in. Is that too much to ask for?”

Sasuke glances at his watch again, its long hand hovering dangerously close to 9:20AM. So the Judge is almost thirty minutes late, and he’s not surprised. Kakashi has a certain track record for tardiness that annoys both Sasuke -- and his witnesses -- to no end.

“Okay, or if the song thing is too logistically complicated, which it’s not, can we have like, air horns or something that go off when we enter the courtroom? Literally, I’m not asking for a lot, I’m willing to compromise.”

“You’re a junior attorney, Corporate Counsel,” Sasuke reminds Naruto. “No one cares.”

His best friend sticks his tongue out at him, reminiscent of their grade school days. “You’re a junior attorney, too, bastard,” he jibes. “At your dad’s law firm. How does that feel?”

“About the same way it feels to work for the City’s law department when your father’s the Mayor, I imagine.”

“Are you accusing the government of nepotism?”

“Not accusing,” Sasuke retorts. “Merely stating.”

Naruto’s open palm falls against his back. “Why are you litigating this, anyway?”

“It’s one of our pro bono cases.” The minute hand nears the half-hour mark. “And why is the government representing the decedent’s estate?”

The other man shrugs. “I don’t know the details.” 

“This case shouldn’t have gone to trial. It could have been fixed with a settlement.” The blond’s head swivels to the left at the sound of high heels echoing down the corridor, like a dog whistle. Sasuke rolls his eyes. Naruto truly is, above all things, Jiraiya’s disciple.

“Is she with you?” Naruto asks in his best attempt at a muted voice. His best friend sizes up the woman approaching them, dressed in a heather grey herringbone suit.

“She’s our witness--” Deciding he approves after his cursory evaluation, Naruto whistles a low note. “And our medical expert. You should know this,” scolds Sasuke, “we sent you this information during discovery. Did you not--”

“Yeah, I remember that, kind of. Sakura-chan, right?”

“ _Haruno-sensei_.”

“Since when do you care about honorifics?” the blond deflects, not acknowledging his error. “Seriously. You’ve been thrown out of classrooms for not calling our teachers _sensei_.”

Dodging the question, Sasuke continues, “How do you win any cases, dead-last?”

“Improvisation!” Naruto proclaims. “Creative lawyering!” Sasuke raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Good looks and charisma!”

“Dumb luck,” the Uchiha corrects. His rival scowls.

“You’re just mad because we’ve won the same amount of cases.” Sasuke scoffs. Not after this case, at least. All Sasuke has to prove is that the decedent was dead before the driver’s car hit the body. And given that the decedent had shot himself in the temple before the car came, it would be an embarrassment if he were to lose the case. The government lawyer turns to the new arrival as she stops to stand next to Sasuke. “Hey, how are you doing today?”

The witness nods at him politely. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“Have trouble finding the room?” Naruto says, inching towards her flirtatiously, in what Sasuke presumes to be a show of his self-proclaimed good looks and charisma.

Her polite facade flickers for a moment, showing her annoyance. “No. Shall we go in? I have a previously scheduled work commitment in about an hour and a half. There’s not much time for small talk.”

“The Judge isn’t here yet,” Sasuke informs her, watching the blond’s ego deflate with satisfaction. “I apologize. You were supposed to testify at 9:30.”

Raking her hand through her rosette locks, she allows herself a moment of visible frustration before returning to her proper demeanor. “Ah, alright. No worries.” Then readies herself to wait.

“Hey, Sakura-chan, not a case related question -- what do you think about entrance songs? For courtrooms? And I guess hospitals too?”

Her judgmental gaze sweeps over Naruto to Sasuke and softens. “So, you have this trial in the bag, huh?” she jokes, scornful humor bleeding through her civility. He smirks in response.

* * *

“Haruno-sensei, did you check the man’s pulse when you went to examine his body before the SUV passed?” Naruto’s voice reverberates through the mostly empty courtroom. As much as Sasuke likes to mock Naruto, he does admit that his rival is capable of an artful cross-examination. Not that he’d ever tell him that, of course.

“No.”

The blond inches towards the witness bench. “Then how do you _know_ he was dead?” he demands. 

Sakura is unimpressed by the loud display. Twenty minutes into Naruto’s badgering, she retains her resolve. Sasuke would be lying if he were to say he isn’t marginally impressed. “Gunshot wounds to the temple have a ninety-percent mortality rate. The wound was fatal. Medically speaking, he must have been dead before the car came.”

“But even so, there was a ten-percent chance he could have been alive, yes?” Confident that he’s backed the witness into a corner, a smug look settles on the attorney’s face.

“No,” the doctor dismisses the lawyer’s statement. “The wound was fatal.”

“And how do you know the wound was fatal?”

Sakura squints at Naruto incredulously. She takes a deep breath and rubs her forehead. She begins to speak very slowly, as if to a kindergartener, “A similar bullet passing downward from the left frontal lobe tip toward the temporal lobe and brainstem is likely to be devastating because it passes through eloquent brain tissue and is likely to injure important vascular structures inside the head.” She traces the entry wound of the bullet on her own temple. “He would have immediately stopped breathing. That, coupled with the fact the back of his head was completely blown out before the car hit his body, show that the wound was absolutely fatal. Essentially, the deceased lost function in the most vital parts of his brain, including structures of the hindbrain.” Sasuke relaxes in his seat, satisfied by her thorough and professional explanation.

Naruto clasps his hands together and stands directly in front of the witness, unrelenting in his line of questioning. Sasuke recognizes this signature move; Naruto often employs it to intimidate particularly difficult witnesses. Like Sakura, who looks ready to swing at the attorney’s next question. “But even so, even missing parts of his brain, the victim could have still been alive, yes?”

The doctor guffaws. Then, deadpan, she replies, “Yes, and he could be defending the estate of the deceased in this very courtroom, today.” The sharp wit of her insult figuratively slaps Naruto across the face and sends him reeling. The Uchiha smiles at her in approval. She blushes in response.

“Objection,” Sasuke interjects, rising from his seat to save her, “asked and answered.”

Still processing the jab, his best friend intones, “What?”

“Sustained.” Kakashi casts a suspicious glance over the parties, looking from the dark-haired attorney to the doctor at the witness stand.

“Kakashi-dono, I’d like to have the witness’s statement stricken from the record,” the blond says, a sheepish grin blossoming on his face.

The silver-haired man shoots him a wry look. “Very well. Clerk, please strike the witness’s statement from the record. Haruno-sensei, please refrain from addressing counsel sarcastically. Counsel, you may resume your cross-examination.”

Naruto coughs awkwardly. “Haruno-sensei, is it true you graduated medical school?”

“Yes. Is it true that you passed the bar examination?” Sasuke snorts, despite himself. Well, he thinks, there’s no salvaging this one, so he might as well let himself enjoy the moment. The witness clutches the fabric of her blazer, knuckles turning white. Her hands are plain, naked and without scars. No ring, Sasuke notes.

The blond frowns. “Objection, Kakashi-dono!”

“Sustained.” The Judge sighs. “Witness, please refrain from asking counsel questions. Opposing counsel,” he addresses Sasuke, “I must request that you prepare your witnesses better before trial.” Sasuke’s eye twitches. “Counsel, you may continue.”

“Haruno-sensei, you are a surgeon at Konoha General, correct?” The raven-haired lawyer considers raising an objection for the redundant, already answered question, but allows it.

“Yes.”

“What is your specialty?”

The young woman shifts in her seat at the witness stand. “I am a trauma surgeon.”

“Had you been able to perform surgery on the victim, is it likely you would have been able to save him?” Naruto says, resorting to his arsenal of absurd tricks. Sasuke realizes he must have blown his emergency plan.

The Uchiha recognizes the expression on Sakura’s face immediately. “Objection, out of scope,” the attorney states before the young surgeon says something snarky to have both of them held in contempt of court.

“Sustained.”

Naruto looks at him, defeated. “That concludes my line of questioning.”

Kakashi slams his gavel down. “The Court will take a ten minute recess before listening to closing statements.”

Sakura catches him by the water fountain on her way out. “Uh,” she says, bashful, and he wonders why he enjoys seeing this side of her, “sorry about that.”

He holds a hand up. “No need.”

She looks up at him, as if she has something else to say. “Well, you know, uh,” the doctor sputters, “um, do you need me for anything else? Can I leave now?”

Sakura looks up at him curiously, fluorescent light from the courtroom reflecting in her jade eyes. Then, it dawns on him. “I do have a final question for you,” Sasuke says. Her face flushes the way it did on the witness stand as she nervously fiddles with the ends of her hair. “Are you free for dinner next week?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura is served with her first lawsuit. When she thinks it can’t get any worse, the guy that stood her up a month ago walks in and says he’s her lawyer.

The Legal Department of Konoha Hospital is comprised of exactly one sound-proof interview booth and a dilapidated desk that was probably loaned to them by a high school years ago and is now forgotten. Its winning quality is the hidden vending machine that sells quality imported bear curry from Amegakure in a can, but Sakura had decided years ago, at the beginning of her internship, that it wasn’t worth the trek. Needless to say, lawsuit or not, the Legal Department of KH is a place that the majority of the hospital steers clear of on most days.

But today, Sakura doesn’t have the luxury. “It’s because you didn’t make blessings this year,” her mother had nagged the young doctor the day she was served. “And I told you not to do that risky surgery on Butsumetsu Day. I raised you better than that, Sakura!”

“It was an emergency,” she hissed over the phone, “I didn’t _elect_ to have it that day, it just happened.”

Sitting in one of the uncomfortable plastic seats of the interview booth, Sakura crosses one leg over the other. Tired of waiting, she uncrosses her legs impatiently, fidgeting with the string of her lanyard. She recounts the details to herself: she performed the surgery on Butsumetsu Day and was served with the lawsuit on the subsequent Friday the 13th. How very storybook, she muses sarcastically, how lovely. 

The door quietly clicks open as Sakura swims in circles in the depths of her self-pity. “It’s… Sakura?” the person, presumably her lawyer, greets.

Not being able to place the familiar voice, she looks up. It takes all of her will power for Sakura’s jaw not to drop at the sight.

“What are you doing, popping up here, Sakura?”

“Uh, Sasuke-kun, I mean, Uchiha-san,” the surgeon begins clumsily. “I’m here for an intake interview with my attorney.”

“Ah,” he intones. The raven-haired man takes a seat across from her, not acknowledging her presence otherwise. He places his briefcase in front of her and opens his laptop without so much as a word. Then, after ten minutes of complete silence, Sasuke presses, “What did you do?”

Sakura bristles. “What did _I_ do?”

“This is the second time you’re involved in one of my cases. Now, you’re at the center. You’re always getting into trouble,” he condescends. “Quite frankly, it’s annoying.” His tone cuts through her. “Let’s begin. What happened?”

She wishes she had an attorney that believed in small talk for a moment. “Okay, two weeks ago, I performed a craniectomy--”

“Why did you perform a craniectomy? Isn’t it more standard for trauma surgeons to perform a less invasive ventriculostomy?”

“What,” Sakura says, mildly disturbed by the extent of his prior medical knowledge, and offended at his apparent disbelief in her own. “I did, actually. A month ago. It wasn’t effective, and the brain began to swell again. Which is why I performed the craniectomy.”

Sasuke’s fingers fall upon his keyboard with an excessive amount of force as he clamors away, presumably taking notes. He doesn’t look up from his screen once, building a wall between them. “Can we confirm that you really performed the ventriculostomy?”

“I mean, yes, there were witnesses--”

“We need medical records.”

“Well, okay, not possible,” she replies, feeling very exhausted.

He clicks his tongue in disapproval. “And why is that? Is it because you didn’t perform the surgery? It’s essential that you tell me the complete truth.”

Sakura frowns at the sheer disrespect. “No, because like, patient confidentiality.”

The lawyer doesn’t respond for a while. Then, he resumes typing. “We’ll subpoena the records.”

“The craniectomy was successful. The patient was in a coma for a few days, woke up. We gave him a custom-helmet to wear outside,” she recounts, “but I suppose he didn’t quite follow our instructions. The patient and his partner were driving when he hit his head again.”

“And then?”

“Well, even a small bump can be fatal like that, after such an invasive surgery,” Sakura explains. “He wasn’t wearing his helmet.”

Sasuke leans his elbows on the table, folding his hands in front of him and hiding his face contemplatively. “Is that true?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be representing me?” The surgeon pushes his laptop screen down, snapping. “I get it, you don’t like me, I got that when you _stood me up a month ago_ , but can you at least be professional?”

The attorney lowers his hand to open his computer again, knuckles brushing against hers. “I stood you up?”

“Did... we not agree to a date at Otafuku and Medetai downtown?” Her heart races uncomfortably in her chest.

“Medetai and Otafuku,” he corrects, looking both relieved and irritated. “They’re on the same block.”

“I waited an hour,” she says, “if that counts for anything.”

The glow of the screen illuminates the sharp angles of his face once more. “You waited all that time? You couldn’t have called me?”

Sakura giggles nervously. “Well, it’s just that,” she pauses, trying to think of a better excuse and failing, “I didn’t want to embarrass myself.”

Suddenly, the lawyer rises from the table, collecting his briefcase and tucking his laptop beneath his left arm. “You’re stubborn.”

“Wait, stop--” she scrambles to collect her charts-- “we’re not finished! Don’t you need to know more details about my testimon--”

He regards her, a smirk playing at his lips. “Come,” Sasuke says, stepping out of the booth and holding the door open for her.

“Where?” the doctor asks, but follows his lead anyway. In the attorney’s car, Sakura looks over at him. “Aren’t we driving kind of far?”

“We’re finishing your interview,” Sasuke tells her, “over dinner. At _Medetai_ and Otafuku.”

She pinches the wrinkled fabric of her mint green scrubs in distaste. “Isn’t it against some type of attorney code to date your clients?”

“It’s an interview, Sakura,” he says, matter-of-fact. The raven-haired man’s eyes never leave the road.

Later, as Sasuke leans over to kiss her in the privacy of his apartment after dinner, he amends, “No, it isn’t.” 

“It only took two lawsuits,” she jokes. “I guess you could say, you subpoenaed me?”

Sasuke brushes a fallen eyelash from her face, running his thumb against her cheek. “Stop.” And as the Uchiha kisses her again, the surgeon thinks of shrine blessings and Butsumetsu and Friday the 13th. Sakura might be unlucky in most other things, but she is happy to be lucky in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a rough day at work, so I wrote more lawyer fanfiction. Enjoy!

**Author's Note:**

> I might continue this as a more serious/but still lighthearted modern AU. If you made it this far, I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
